Leo and I stared at her with awe.
‘That was wonderful,’ I said. ‘How come it sounds so splendid for you?’
‘I used shen,’ Simone said, ‘not chi.’
‘Does Mr Chen know you can do that?’ Leo said.
Simone smiled and shook her head.
‘We need to let Leo have his day off, Simone,’ I said. ‘I’m still having breakfast with my mum and dad. Want to sit with us?’
‘Sure,’ Simone said. ‘I forgot, Leo, sorry. You go.’
Leo saluted us both and went out without saying a word.
‘Can you do shen work apart from that, Simone?’ I said as we went down the hall together.
‘No. Just that. I did it by accident the first time. It sounds really pretty.’
We went into the kitchen together.
‘Hello, Mrs Donahoe, Mr Donahoe,’ Simone said.
‘Hello, dear,’ my mother said. ‘Are you okay after last night? You weren’t too scared?’
John grabbed his teapot and cup, nodded to my parents, and rose.
‘Wait!’ I said quickly, and he stopped in the doorway. ‘Did you know that Simone can make the sword sing with shen?’
John glanced sharply at Simone, then returned to the table and put down the pot and cup. He pulled Simone to sit in his lap.
‘You put shen into Emma’s sword?’ he said.
‘It sounds really pretty when you use shen, Daddy,’ Simone said. ‘Much nicer than when you use chi.’
‘Don’t try to use ching, you’re too little,’ John said sternly.
‘Don’t be silly, Daddy,’ Simone said. ‘Of course not.’
My parents silently watched the exchange, bewildered.
‘Good,’ he said gently. ‘Can you hold out your hands for me and put some shen into them?’
‘Is that okay to do?’
‘It should be all right while I’m holding you.’
Simone held her hands out and concentrated. A ball of pure silvery-white shen energy appeared above her outstretched palms.
My mother gasped quietly.
‘How much do you have, do you think?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. There’s still a lot inside me.’
‘Put it back, sweetheart.’
The shen disappeared.
‘Is she already Immortal, John?’ I said. ‘You said only Immortals can work with shen.’
John put his hand on Simone’s forehead and concentrated. ‘No.’
‘Well then, why can she do that?’
He smiled gently. ‘Because she is who she is. Same as you.’ He rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Don’t do that too much, sweetheart, it can be dangerous. Don’t do it unless I’m watching you.’
‘Okay, Daddy,’ Simone said. ‘Where’s Ah Yat? I’m
hungry
.’
‘You’re always hungry when you’re working with energy,’ I said.
Ah Yat appeared. ‘Yes, my Princess?’
‘Can I have some ramen, please, Ah Yat?’
Ah Yat bowed slightly. ‘My Lady.’
‘I have work to do. I’ll leave you to it,’ John said. ‘When you want to go out, call me. I’ll take you. There may be strays.’ He nodded to my parents. ‘Brendan, Barbara.’ He rose and gently slid Simone onto the chair. ‘Don’t do shen work unless I’m with you.’
‘What about the sword?’
‘That too.’
‘Okay, Daddy.’ Simone hopped off the chair and went to the fridge to find some apple juice.
Emma, I need to talk to you,
John said silently.
Come with me into my office.
‘I’ll be right back,’ I said to my parents. I glanced at my tea. ‘I’ll never finish this.’
Bring it with you
.
‘Good idea.’
My parents stared at me as if I was completely crazy.
‘I
am
completely crazy,’ I said. ‘I’d have to be to put up with this.’
Too true
.
‘Enough!’ I picked up my teacup and went out with John. Simone watched us go, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
Daddy just likes annoying you sometimes,
she said silently.
‘I will make a rule about this if you two don’t stop it,’ I said fiercely.
‘What’s going on?’ my father said.
‘You explain to them, Simone,’ I said. ‘Since you’re so clever.’
I stopped at the doorway and watched. Simone concentrated on my parents over the top of her apple juice. They both jumped as if stung.
John sat behind his desk and I took one of the visitor’s chairs. The desk was in an even worse mess than usual, probably a result of the end-of-year budgeting and the recruitment of the new novices.
‘I wish I had time to go through this room properly,’ I said. ‘When my parents have left, I’ll spend a whole day in here sorting this lot out. Even the Sanskrit.’
‘Go right ahead.’ He leaned forward over the desk. ‘What Simone just did is exceptional.’
‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘She’s not even on the Celestial Plane.’
‘Only the very few of the very largest of us can do that.’ He leaned back and retied his hair. ‘And she’s not even Immortal yet.’
‘You mean she may end up more powerful than you? I find that difficult to believe.’
‘I don’t think so. But she will certainly outshine many on the Plane. Emma, listen carefully.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Stone.’
‘My Lord,’ the stone in my ring said.
‘Record this.’
‘Very good, my Lord.’
‘Emma, I’m just having the stone record this so that you don’t need to remember all of it. You and the stone can pass the instructions on to the Masters. Here goes.’ He leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘After I’m gone, I want Simone to learn travel, advanced energy weapons, summoning, and yin.’
‘Yin?’ the stone said.
‘Record. Do not comment,’ John said. ‘I want her to learn level three binding. Up to level ninety taming. Shen; all aspects of shen work. If I have not returned by the time she is twenty years old, then ching as well. I want her to have Dark Heavens immediately both myself and Leo are gone. And when she is fourteen years old, Gold is to bring down Seven Stars for her.’
‘When she’s only fourteen?’ I said softly.
‘Yes. Unfortunately, nobody else besides me knows how to make it shine, so I’ll tell you now, just in case.’
‘I’ve never seen it shine,’ I said.
‘I wish you could,’ John said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Right now I can’t do it; I need to be near full strength and in Celestial Form. It is a sight to see. Hopefully you can pass the information on to Simone, and she will be able to make the sword resonate.’ He glanced at the stone. ‘Record this carefully.’
‘I really am most profoundly honoured, my Lord,’ the stone said softly. ‘Are you sure you want to tell me this?’
‘I think when Simone is about fourteen she will take some sort of Celestial Form,’ John said. ‘Based on what she did this morning, it is quite possible.’ He dropped his head and grimaced. ‘I won’t see it.’
‘What about a True Form?’ I said.
He smiled and shrugged. ‘No idea. I like to think she will be a Serpent, as you are.’ He obviously had a sudden thought. ‘Stop recording, stone.’
‘My Lord,’ the stone said.
‘Emma,’ he said, studying me intensely, ‘you never named your own sword. Why not?’
‘I just felt it was too pretentious.’
‘It’s easier to refer to the weapon by name, you know. Immortals can call weapons to them when the weapons have names.’
I sighed. ‘I know. I just didn’t feel right about it. It’s just my weapon, nothing special. Same as me, nothing special.’
He made a soft sound of amusement but didn’t rise to it. ‘Did it occur to you that the blade may already have a name?’
‘No, not at all,’ I said. ‘I never really thought about it too much, it was just my weapon. But I think I should give it to Simone now. It sings much more sweetly for her.’
‘It is the Silver Serpent.’
‘You’re joking. The sword’s name is the
Serpent
?’
‘That is the Serpent?’ the stone said.
‘Yes,’ he said to both of us. ‘Begin recording again.’
‘My Lord,’ the stone said.
John looked down at his hands. ‘To make Seven Stars resonate, Simone must be able to take a Celestial Form. Then she needs to light all the cauldrons and open all the gates. Do you know what a chakra is, Emma?’
‘I know. But that’s an Indian thing, not Chinese at
all. You have dan tian, cauldrons and gates, not chakras.’
‘Same thing,’ John said. ‘Three cauldrons, the three dan tian. Three gates. One Inner Eye. Each corresponds to a chakra, there are seven altogether. There are seven cavities on the sword. One for each star, one for each chakra. She will need to load the sword with her own chakras for it to shine.’
‘That will be an incredibly difficult process to master,’ the stone said with awe. ‘One wrong step and she could destroy herself.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ John said. ‘I think she will be able to do it.’
‘She’ll be projecting her own dan tian into the sword?’ I said softly.
‘Yes. The sword will become perfectly aligned with her. She and the sword will protect each other. Part of her consciousness will enter the sword.’ His eyes turned inwards and he smiled. ‘The experience is incredibly euphoric when you do it right. The destructive power of the loaded weapon is immeasurable.’
‘Under what circumstances would she need to use it, though? There probably won’t be any demons that she’ll need to fear anyway, once she’s all the way there.’
‘You are quite right, Emma,’ John said. ‘She will only need to use it if faced by an overwhelming force.’ He leaned back. ‘Now, go and talk to your parents.’
‘How long do we have, Xuan Wu?’
His face went rigid. ‘Not long.’
I
went back with my tea and sat at the kitchen table. Simone was amusing my parents with stories of Zhu Que’s chicks.
‘The birds talk?’ my mother said.
‘They’re not really birds—’ I began.
‘Yes, they are, silly Emma,’ Simone said. ‘They’re really
birds
. Not really children at all.’
‘They look like baby emus,’ I said.
‘What’s an emu?’ Simone said.
‘I should take you to Australia again.’
‘That would be fun,’ Simone said. ‘Maybe after Daddy has gone, and we don’t have to worry about the demons so much. After he’s killed One Two Two.’
My mother made a small sound and I glanced at her. Her face was unreadable.
I turned back to Simone. ‘It’s a deal. Maybe next Christmas. Even if he’s still here, we’ll go and take him for a swim in the sea.’
‘What would you like to do today, Mrs Donahoe?’ Simone said. ‘Where would you like us to take you?’
‘Any suggestions, Emma?’ my father said through his cornflakes.
‘It’s difficult on a Sunday,’ I said.
‘Why, nothing open?’ my mother said.
Simone giggled at that. My mother looked at her with bewilderment.
‘Everything’ll be open, Mum, that’s not the problem,’ I said. ‘Hong Kong is very densely populated, and for many people Sunday is the only day off. So the shopping centres, the streets, everywhere, will be packed.’
‘You can’t move in the middle of Causeway Bay,’ Simone said, still delighted. ‘The ground floor of Sogo is packed. You can’t even get in.’
‘Sogo is a big Japanese department store in Causeway Bay,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why, but everyone agrees to meet at the entrance on a Sunday. It’s absolutely packed to the rafters with people.’
‘Want to go
yum cha
?’ Simone said. ‘There’s a couple of places that know Daddy, and we don’t have to take a number.’
‘Oh no,
please
, Simone,’ I moaned, ‘you know I can’t eat anything there. Hardly any of it’s vegetarian.’
‘What?’ my father said, still through the cornflakes.
I ran my hands through my hair. ‘I’m mostly vegetarian now, guys. Sorry.’
‘It’s because Emma’s becoming Immortal,’ Simone said with relish. ‘Human Immortals are vegetarian. Like Kwan Yin.’
The phone rang. I rose to get it, but John answered it in the study.
‘Tell us about this Immortal stuff, Emma,’ my mother said as I sat back down.
I was silent. I didn’t want to go into detail about it.
‘If a human being attains the Tao, then they become Immortal,’ Simone said, her eyes sparkling. ‘That’s what Emma’s doing.’
‘Tao?’ my father said.
‘The Way,’ I said. ‘It’s complicated. I’d prefer not to talk about it.’
‘You are no fun at all sometimes, Emma,’ Simone said, sounding much more mature than her six years.
John appeared in the doorway and leaned in to speak to us, one hand on either side of the frame. ‘Emma, we have problems.’
My heart sank. ‘Already?’
‘Leo called from the dojo he teaches at on Sundays. It’s in Causeway Bay. Michael’s there. About fifty low-level demons have turned up at the front door seeking sanctuary.’
He stopped and went rigid, his eyes unfocused. Then he snapped back and smiled gently. ‘More have turned up at Turtle’s Folly. And about a hundred appeared outside the car park of Hennessy Road. Altogether, about two hundred demons, all over Hong Kong, all pleading for protection.’
The intercom next to the front door buzzed.
‘Oh my God, no,’ I said.
John answered it.
‘Yes, Barnabas?’ he said. ‘How many? Okay. I’ll be right down.’
He came back to the doorway, leaned in and smiled. ‘About twenty downstairs. We have a busy day ahead of us.’
‘What’s going on, Emma?’ my mother said weakly.
‘What are we going to do?’ I said. ‘I wanted to show my parents around.’
‘We can do that at the same time,’ he said. ‘You finish your breakfast; I’ll go downstairs and sort out the demons here. Then we’ll go to the Folly, then the dojo, then to Hennessy Road.’
‘Do the dojo first,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t belong to us. The owner will be upset if the demons don’t disappear in a hurry. Does he know who you are?’
‘No, you’re quite right. He has no idea who I am, only that I’m one of the best there is. He knows I taught
Li. I’ll do downstairs first, and then we can go to Causeway Bay.’
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘What the hell will we do with two hundred demons?’
‘I have no idea,’ John said. ‘All suggestions welcome.’
‘What is this all about, Emma?’ my father demanded.
‘Explain while I go downstairs and sort them out,’ John said.
‘Can’t a Master do this?’ I wailed.
‘Nope. Only a Celestial, and I’m the only one around today. Oh,’ his face cleared, ‘what a good idea. Simone.’
‘Yes, Daddy?’ Simone said through her noodles without turning around.
‘Want to come and have a lesson in demon taming?’
‘
Cool
!’ Simone squealed. She jumped up and threw her chopsticks onto the table.
‘I wonder if you can do it too,’ John said, eyeing me appraisingly. ‘Considering what you are. Stone.’
The stone didn’t reply and I tapped it.
‘Yes, my Lady?’
‘Have a look at Emma. Do you think she can tame demons directly now?’
The stone was silent for a moment. ‘Not right now. On the inside she appears to be a perfectly normal human being.’
‘What about the Serpent?’
‘Damn,’ I said softly.
‘Probably,’ the stone said. ‘But right now it’s not there.’
‘Okay,’ John said. ‘Just me and Simone then. Emma, you stay up here and keep your parents company. This will take about half an hour, then we’ll all go down to Causeway Bay. Come on, Simone.’
Simone bounced to her father and grabbed his hand. ‘I want a demon servant for myself!’
‘No way!’ I shouted at their backs. ‘You do your own cleaning up!’
I heard the door open. ‘You are no fun at all, Emma,’ Simone said faintly just as the door closed.
‘I do not appreciate being ignored like this,’ my father growled.
‘Sorry. We just had to organise what to do,’ I said.
‘What’s the big problem?’ my mother said.
‘Demons have turned up on our doorstep looking for sanctuary—hundreds of them.’ I ran my hands through my hair. ‘There are different levels of demons, and the low-level ones are usually servants—except more like possessions—of the larger ones. When a really big demon gets annoyed, it usually takes it out on the small ones. The demon we saw last night is a really big one, a Prince, and he’s particularly cruel to his thralls. Looks like just about every single one of them has tried to escape him and turned to us.’
‘What is John going to do?’ my mother said.
‘First he has to check that they’ve really turned. Then he’ll send them somewhere to work for him—although God knows what we’ll do with two hundred demons. We really don’t have the room for them.’
‘I’m really beginning to wish that I’d never come to this awful place, Emma,’ my mother said softly. ‘And that you’d never come here either.’
‘You’ll be fine.’ I tried to reassure her. ‘When John and Simone come back up, we’ll all go down to Causeway Bay and have a look at the shops while he sorts out the demons at the dojo. Don’t worry, we’ll be safe.’
‘I don’t know how you can live like this,’ my father said. ‘You act as if you’re totally unafraid. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world.’
‘I hardly recognise you,’ my mother whispered. ‘You
aren’t the girl that left Queensland six years ago to work in Hong Kong for a couple of years.’
‘I’m still the same person.’
‘You’re a bloody
snake
!’ my father cried. ‘If that lady hadn’t shown us inside you, I would swear you were a different person. That you aren’t Emma at all.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Are you
sure
we’ll be safe?’ my mother said.
‘Absolutely positive.’ I tried to smile. ‘Come on, you might enjoy yourselves. The shops around Causeway Bay are great fun.’
‘Simone said something about Leo’s mother hurting his mouth and that’s why he has a speech impediment,’ my father said from the front of the car as John drove us all down to the dojo. ‘What happened?’
‘Not
Leo’s
mother, a
Snake Mother
,’ Simone said patiently. She was sitting between my mother and me in the back seat. ‘Snake Mothers are big demons.’
My parents glanced at me, questioning. I looked out the car window and didn’t say anything.
‘What did the demons do to him, Emma?’ my mother said.
‘They cut his tongue in half,’ John said, without looking away from the road. ‘Right down the middle. We were able to heal it, but he’ll never speak clearly again.’
My parents were silent. I could picture their faces, but I still didn’t look.
John made himself appear very old as we neared the Causeway Bay dojo.
‘Have you been here before, Emma?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘A couple of times, to pick up Leo.’
John eased the car up into the car park and parked it not far from the smaller Mercedes.
‘Do you need a cover story?’ I said before we stepped out of the car.
‘No. I’ll just be me, John Chen Wu. The owner of the dojo just knows my name and that I’m Leo’s employer.’ He grinned at me. ‘Do I look about ninety?’
‘At least.’ I grinned back. ‘Very cute.’
‘He doesn’t look cute, he looks
stupid
,’ Simone said.
‘Respect your elders,’ John said sharply in a thin elderly voice.
Simone screamed with laughter.
‘You okay to get around like that?’ I said. ‘You don’t need help?’
‘Nope,’ he said in his usual voice, his dark eyes sparkling under his bushy white eyebrows. ‘It’s only the outside. The Dark Lord is inside, still as drained as ever.’ He glanced at the car park lift. ‘I hope Roland has a spare room where we can do this.’
‘Come on, guys,’ I said to my parents, who were watching us like frightened deer. ‘Everything’ll be fine. Let’s sort out these demons, then we’ll go to the shops.’
The dojo was on the eighth floor of a nondescript commercial building in the least glamorous part of Causeway Bay. The lift was tiny, old and filthy. My parents were not impressed.
The eighth-floor lobby was tiled with ghastly dark green tiles, and the walls were bare concrete stained black with smoke from the incense in the altars to the door gods.
Mr Pak had the whole floor of the building, his family had owned it for many years. The dojo’s single door had a red demon-warding light above it, a small altar to the door god next to it, and a number of good-luck calligraphy papers stuck all around it. There was a huge metal gate in front of it, but that was left open during the day.
John banged on the door. Nothing happened. He stopped and concentrated.
Leo opened the door and poked his head around. ‘My Lord. My Lady. Come on in, we have a lot of explaining to do.’
The whole dojo was a hubbub of voices. There must have been dozens of demons in the training rooms, but the hallway was deserted.
John stilled. The noise hushed immediately. There was complete silence.
‘John, your hair’s going black,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Try to hold the shape.’
John concentrated again and gained a few years.
‘I do not believe this,’ my father growled quietly.
‘Maybe take your parents shopping while I sort this out,’ John said to me.
‘How many are there?’
‘About seventy-five, but more are turning up all the time.’
Roland Pak charged down the hall towards us and shouldered Leo aside. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he shouted in Cantonese. ‘Are these refugees from the mainland or something? Illegals? If you don’t give me a good reason why I shouldn’t call the police, I’ll be hitting the phone soon and hitting it
hard
.’
‘So sorry about this, Roland,’ John said calmly in English. ‘New students from the Mainland, came to the wrong address. Should have come to me.’
‘Like I said, I gave the bus driver the wrong address, Roland,’ Leo said, taking the blame. ‘I should have given the bus driver the address of Mr Chen’s place in Wan Chai, but I gave him the wrong card.’
‘Hair, John,’ I whispered under my breath.
‘Just let me round them up and get them fixed,’ John said amiably. ‘I’ll check their IDs and then send them over to my building.’
Roland studied John carefully.
I shot a glance at John. He was losing it.
John concentrated on Leo.
‘Come with me, Roland,’ Leo said, taking Roland’s shoulder and turning him away. ‘Let’s go and have some coffee or tea or something while Mr Chen makes these students disappear.’
Roland shrugged Leo off and faced John. He studied him intensely.
I’m very drained, Emma,
John said into my ear.
The last couple of days have taken a lot out of me. I don’t think I can hold it.
‘Come on, Roland,’ Leo said, trying to turn him around.
‘Get your hands off me before I hit you,’ Roland hissed. ‘What the hell is going on here?’
He stared at John, who had reverted. He didn’t look ninety any more, he looked about fifty, and his hair was almost completely black.
Roland’s face became a mask of horror. ‘
Demon
!’ he shouted and moved into a guard stance. ‘
What are you?
’
John completely lost it. He roared with laughter, then straightened and changed back to his normal middle-aged self. He grinned at Roland with delight. ‘You think
I’m
a demon? You have seventy-five of them in here already and you think
I’m
a
demon
?’
Roland didn’t shift.
‘Sorry about this, Leo,’ John said. ‘Couldn’t be helped.’
‘Not your fault, my Lord,’ Leo said. ‘It’ll be fun to tell him anyway. Can’t wait to see the look on his face.’
‘I want to be there too.’ Michael came down the hallway and stopped behind Leo. ‘I want to see his face when he finds out. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.’
‘You three go and tell him everything,’ I said. ‘I’m taking Mum and Dad shopping.’